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About Tracy

Tracy Gagnon, Community Sustainability Organizer, landed in Sitka after teaching at the University of Oregon and working for food-based non-profits in Oregon. Most of her projects focused on connecting youth and adults alike to their food source through hands-on gardening, farm field trips, and cooking. Her passion is working on food justice issues to ensure everyone has access to healthy, fresh foods. Her focus at SCS is to manage the Fish to School program and begin a 4H Club that embraces the Alaska way-of-life by coordinating activities that connect youth to their environment and local food sources.

Earlier this fall we set out on a hunt, a mushroom hunt. With our paper bags in hand we searched for different mushrooms with Sitka Conservation Society Board Treasurer, UAS Professor, and mycologist Kitty LaBounty. Families worked together looking for different fungus: some large, some small, some edible, some gilled and others with spongy pores. This was the first time many of the members of the Alaska Way-of-Life 4H Club have ever looked for mushrooms. This outing helped them to experience their natural environment in a new way, with different eyes. Their vision became focused and directed at finding these special fungi that are intimately connected to the forest through their extensive mycelium network. After collecting mushrooms we gathered together to group the mushrooms in to different categories: edible and non-edible, size, color, and cap structure. On this evening parents and children alike learned safe harvesting practices, edible mushroom types, and mushroom identification. It was a wonderful opportunity to tap into the underground mysteries of the forest with fresh, young eyes. And—what a fun way to forage for food!

**Knowing how the different forms of life in an ecosystem interact helps us all to better understand the natural world. And the more we understand the natural world, the better stewards we can be to ensure that future generations can experience the magnificence of the local environment. The Alaska Way-of-Life 4H Club teaches students about the natural world through hands-on activities so they too can be a part of their natural environment of the Tongass.